Pages

Thursday, 4 April 2013

How The Odds For The 2013 Drivers' Championship Have Changed Since Pre-Season

Early season movers in the betting market...

Before the Australian Grand Prix I took a look at how the odds for the 2013 Drivers' Championship had changed since the market first opened.

Although it's still too early to have a categoric idea of the pecking order for the season just yet, the last two races have at least given us a reasonable idea of the general form of the teams. To help me cope with the three week gap between the Malaysian Grand Prix and the Chinese Grand Prix, I've therefore decided to track the latest odds again to see how things have changed since pre-season and see if any trends are emerging.

Early Odds

Pre Australia

Current Odds

Sebastian
Vettel

2.25

2.5

1.91

Fernando
Alonso

3.25

4.0

4.0

Kimi
Raikkonen

11.0

12.0

7.0

Lewis
Hamilton

15.0

9.0

13.0

Mark
Webber

17.0

19.0

21.0

Jenson
Button

9.0

7.0

29.0

Felipe
Massa

51.0

51.0

34.0

Nico
Rosberg

41.0

41.0

51.0

Sergio
Perez

17.0

15.0

101.0

Romain
Grosjean

51.0

41.0

101.0

Nico
Hulkenberg

67.0

251.0

1001.0

Rest of
the field

81.0

251.0

1001.0

As you'd expect given McLaren's unimpressive start to the season, Jenson Button and Sergio Perez are the biggest movers and have drifted out quite considerably. Jenson was in fact the 3rd favourite when the market opened but is now down to 6th in the odds table.

Mark Webber's odds have also lengthened slightly, which I found slightly surprising given that Red Bull look to have the fastest car on the grid at the moment. Obviously team-mate Sebastian Vettel's form, not to mention his ruthless streak in disobeying team orders, has convinced both the bookies and punters that Vettel is once again going to have the upper hand over his team-mate this season.

Sebastian Vettel is one of only three drivers who's odds have shortened since pre-season, and in fact SkyBet now have Vettel as the odds on favourite to make it four championships in a row.

As you'd expect after his fairly comfortable victory in Melbourne, Kimi Raikkonen is another driver who's odds have shortened and SkyBet make Kimi a serious contender at odds of 7.0. Also, despite Fernando Alonso's early exit and zero points haul from from the Malaysian Grand Prix, the bookies still rate his chances as his odds have remained unchanged at 4.0.

It's still too early to draw any firm conclusions, but hopefully we'll have another season long close battle like we did last year and I'd love to see the same variety of winners like we witnessed in the opening seven races of 2012.

. . . . . . . .

Next up on the calendar is China, so as usual I'll be making a selection of pre and post qualifying tips for the Chinese Grand Prix and then comparing which set of tips performs best.